Bitwise Bomb
Oct. 22nd, 2004 08:46 pmOh boy, our first attempt at paradox this round! And I've been selected as Wise Man!
The setup: So we decided to create a Deck of Many Things, which each player can draw one Hazzard[0] card from per turn - random card, randomly chosen to get Up side or Down side. One of these is called Bitwise Operations. Very simple: Take a player's score. Write in binary. Reverse. If you get the Up side, bitwise or it with the original. If you get the Down side, bitwise and it with the original.
Breadman's argument is that the effect is undefined for players with negative scores. How exactly do you go about reversing something that starts with an infinite string of 1s?
...of course, nobody ever actually said to write it in 2's complement, just in binary, so actually even how you would go about writing it is not necessarily well-defined. Also, one could point out, how exactly do you go about reversing something that starts with an infinite string of 0s? We reverse starting with the first 1... so perhaps we should reverse starting with the first 0 for negative scores. Say, I'll think I'll make that my Wise Man's ruling on the case...
-Sniffnoy
[0]It was supposed to just be "Hazard card" originally, but Jef misspelled it as "Hazzard", and those of us who don't play D&D (eg me) thought it was intentional, and when he tried to correct it, we said it looked better that way.
--
"I understand small business growth. I was one."
-George W. Bush
The setup: So we decided to create a Deck of Many Things, which each player can draw one Hazzard[0] card from per turn - random card, randomly chosen to get Up side or Down side. One of these is called Bitwise Operations. Very simple: Take a player's score. Write in binary. Reverse. If you get the Up side, bitwise or it with the original. If you get the Down side, bitwise and it with the original.
Breadman's argument is that the effect is undefined for players with negative scores. How exactly do you go about reversing something that starts with an infinite string of 1s?
...of course, nobody ever actually said to write it in 2's complement, just in binary, so actually even how you would go about writing it is not necessarily well-defined. Also, one could point out, how exactly do you go about reversing something that starts with an infinite string of 0s? We reverse starting with the first 1... so perhaps we should reverse starting with the first 0 for negative scores. Say, I'll think I'll make that my Wise Man's ruling on the case...
-Sniffnoy
[0]It was supposed to just be "Hazard card" originally, but Jef misspelled it as "Hazzard", and those of us who don't play D&D (eg me) thought it was intentional, and when he tried to correct it, we said it looked better that way.
--
"I understand small business growth. I was one."
-George W. Bush
